Received international payment in Nigeria

Accepting international payment as a Nigerian freelancer is a big challenge except if you are using a freelancing platform. If you are using a freelancing platform then they have a system that will pay you directly to your local bank account but if you found a client somewhere else like maybe on facebook or anywhere else you are going to come across this challenge all the time.

Most of the payment options are not available in Nigeria. PayPal is one of the most popular payment options and it is not available in Nigeria. you can use Paypal in Nigeria but you can only send money with it you cannot accept payment with a Paypal account in Nigeria other systems like Hornibook, Freshbook there are a lot of options that are not available for Nigerians.

So that is why I decided to make this post about two free tool to use, they are very easy to create your account in Payoneer and Skrill. You can just set up your account and you will have access to receive payment from England, USA, Canada and other foreign countries while you based in Nigeria.

1. Payoneer 

Payoneer is a financial institution that will allow you to create your own foreign accounts in a couple of minutes while you are in Nigeria. With Payoneer, you can send your account details to your client in the USA, England any other country and they can pay you directly to a bank account as if they are doing a local transfer and they can also create a Payoneer account and they can pay you from Payoneer to Payoneer account and from your Payoneer account you can just add your local bank account e.g Ecobank account. You can also add an account in dollar or you can add account in naira. 

If you add account in dollar then you can just withdraw your money in dollar to your dollar bank account but if you add a naira bank account you can simply convert the dollar and deposit it to an Ajurian bank account in naira but I do recommend you have a dollar account if you are accepting payment in dollar.

Limitations of Using Payoneer to Receive Payment 

One of the major downside is, if you withdraw your money from Payoneer to your Nigerian bank account, it takes two days for the money to arrive in your bank account.

For example, I normally withdraw money on Wednesday and if I withdraw money on Wednesday the money enter my account on Friday. so you see it's two business days. So this is also one of the major downside, you cannot withdraw money and get it in your bank account instantly 

Another major downside is it's a little bit more expensive, when you are withdrawing anything above $500 you are going to pay a minimum of $10 service fee. For inventory transaction even if you are withdrawing less than $100 you are going to pay that $10 fee and the money is going to take 2 days to arrive into your local bank account. 

Also if you give your client, your bank account details, they can only make a transfer to that bank account if they have personal Payoneer account. If they have a business bank account they cannot do a transfer from a personal bank account, but they can easily remove that barrier if they create a payoneer account, they deposit the money in their Payoneer account and they can pay you from Payoneer account to another Payoneer account, similar to how paypal works.

2. Skrill 

Okay, the next payment method which is my favourite, the one I am always using is called Skrill at www.skrill.com. Skrill is my favourite payment option it's also very easy to create their skrill account, also and from their skrill account they can send many to your skrill account it's just using emails from their email to your skrill email account and when they send money to you, you will see the money in your Skrill account, then you can add your bank account in Skrill, you can add a dollar account or naira account. 

If you add a dollar account you can send your money directly to your dollar account in Nigeria. If you added naira bank account, then you convert the money to naira in your Skrill and deposit it to  your naira bank account. 

But the reasons why I prefer using Skrill is, Skrill, when you withdraw money from your Skrill account to your Nigerian bank account, it arrive in less than 1 minute, it's instant, it is as if I am doing a transfer from a Nigerian bank account to another Nigerian bank account, maybe from Firstbank of Nigeria to Zenith Bank.

The service fee is around $5, even if you are withdrawing around $500. So it's cheaper to use and it's faster to receive your payment. The only thing is skri doesn't have an option where you can have your own bank account details in the USA or England that you can share to your client, but that is really not something that i think is going to be that useful in Skrill, because very few of your clients are going to have a business bank account. Therefore, it's it's going to be easier whether you're using Payoneer or Skrill for them

So those are the two methods that i accept international payment from my client and I use both Skrill and Payoneer to accept payment from USA, from England, from Canada and from Philippines. 

I believe in most countries that your client are going to come from Skrill and Payoneer are going to be accessible. If you find this post helpful, please do share it with your friends and family and don't forget to follow the Blueguard for more exciting technology posts. Happy learning!!!

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